Because so many Advertisement sources are vanishing for the average Gun Owner, Hunter, Sportsman, and Collector I created this Blog Forum to insure that the freedoms granted under The U.S. Constitution (The Right to Keep and Bear Arms), and Net Neutrality be maintained, and not be infringed upon (trampled all over).

Friday, January 18, 2008

Blog Item #9: This Section is for Our Veterans:

Our Veterans are treated like crap when they return.

The VA (Veterans Administration) is a joke. This government (both Republican and Democrats) would rather give free health care to Illegal Aliens than to a Vet.It is a disgrace. Are you a Vet? I am a disabled Veteran from the Iraq War. I like to hear from you - your opinions, experiences, etc.

Veteran Affairs under fire for hefty bonuses:Despite $1 billion shortfall, agency gives largest raises in government.WASHINGTON DC - Congressional leaders on Thursday demanded that the Veterans Affairs secretary explain hefty bonuses for senior department officials involved in crafting a budget that came up $1 billion short and jeopardized veterans’ health care.Rep. Harry Mitchell, chairman of the House Veterans’ Affairs subcommittee on oversight, said he would hold hearings to investigate after The Associated Press reported that budget officials at the Veterans Affairs Department received bonuses ranging up to $33,000.Sen. Daniel Akaka, who heads the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, said the payments pointed to an improper “entitlement for the most centrally placed or well-connected staff.” He has sent a letter to VA chief Jim Nicholson asking what the department plans to do to eliminate any bonuses based on favoritism.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Veterans Affairs employees last year racked up hundreds of thousands of dollars in government credit-card bills at casino and luxury hotels, movie theaters and high-end retailers such as Sharper Image and Franklin Covey — and government auditors are investigating, citing past spending abuses.

All told, VA staff charged $2.6 billion to their government credit cards.

Yen must "hope" that disgusted readers will stop there, because, thanks to "clever" writing, many readers will believe that $2.6 billion in spending is under investigation, and that the "hundreds of thousands" represents the small tip of a very big iceberg.

Uh, not exactly.

Four paragraphs later, Yen cites some of the less-than-large specifics (bold is mine):

The Associated Press, through a Freedom of Information request, obtained the VA list of 3.1 million purchases made in the 2007 budget year. The list offers a detailed look into the everyday spending at the government's second largest department.

By and large, it reveals few outward signs of questionable spending, with hundreds of purchases at prosthetic, orthopedic and other medical supply stores.

But there are multiple charges that have caught the eye of government investigators.

..... Many of the 14,000 VA employees with credit cards, who work at headquarters in Washington and at medical centers around the nation, also spent tens of thousands of dollars at Wyndham hotels in places such as San Diego, Orlando, Fla., and on the riverfront in Little Rock, Ark. One-time charges ranged up to $8,000.

On at least six occasions, employees based at VA headquarters made credit card charges at Las Vegas casino hotels totaling $26,198.

Note the gratuitous addition of the word "casino" (Vegas hotels have casinos? Who knew?). Yet Yen makes no assertion that gambling was done on VA cards -- probably because she can't, which is shown two paragraphs later (not excerpted).

Even later, the total dollar amount involved when the auditors are done with their work seems likely to be quite a bit less than overwhelming:

In the coming weeks, auditors at the Government Accountability Office and the VA inspector general's office are to issue reports on purchase card use and spending controls at the VA and other agencies. The reports are expected to show lingering problems at the VA, which auditors cited in 2004 for lax spending controls that wasted up to $1.1 million.

Yen gives no indication as to why we should think the level of waste is any worse now than three years earlier. If the total amount charged to cards in 2004 was about the same as 2007, the level of waste at that time was just over 0.4%.

For a government agency, that would be a taxpayer's dream come true.

Don't get me wrong. I want costs controlled, government employees to be frugal with tax dollars, and those who engage in unauthorized and/or frivolous spending disciplined, up to and including getting unceremoniously canned.

But how about some perspective? AP is wasting precious newsprint and burning gigabytes of bandwidth over a truly trivial amount of money.

Meanwhile, Medicare and Medicaid programs are hemorrhaging billions to waste, fraud, and abuse annually. The fraud estimate at this MSNBC article is $60 billion, just in Medicare. If correct, that $60 billion is over 54,000 times as large as the $1.1 million in waste at VA reported by Yen as having occurred in 2004.

More important, that $60 billion would represent roughly 14% of the $432 billion spent on Medicare in 2007 (scroll about 1/3 of the way down the Social Security Trustee's Report Summary -- the second line item listed as "Income during 2007" is really the amount spent. Medicare-related items are $203.1 billion for Hospital Insurance [HI] and $228.5 billion for Supplemental Medical Insurance [SMI]).

That 14% rate is about 35 times higher (.14 divided by .004) than that estimated to be occurring with VA card charges.

You really have to wonder about the reporting priorities of a news organization that will throw so much of its resources and a 1,400-word article at such a minor amount of spending. Proportional treatment of Medicare fraud based on the amount spent by Medicare would require almost 233,000 words (1,400 times 432 divided by 2.6); you'd better start typing now, Hope.

Subscribing newspapers and others should be wondering how much of what they pay for AP's news is itself misdirected.

NOTE: Personally this veteran thinks these assholes should be fired, they must repay all the funds stolen from our VETS, and do prison time!

I TOO AM A VIET NAM VET AND TOTALLY FED UP AND DISAPPOINTED WITH THE VETERANS ADMINISTRATION HOSPITAL SERVICES!

We America asks for their young people to go gight a war and therefore put their lives on the line, then they deserve every penny of support if they are lucky enough to return home, alive! AWARDS after one is killed, or maimed just does not cut it! Everyone one of us that has served have and and therefore deserve anything and everything the government can put forward, including lifetime healthcare, and or any thing else promised such as a college education. Otherwise the number of Vets sleeping under bridges will only get worse when vets come home to nothing.

John McCain above anyone else should stand up a be counted since his education and family's education have all been paid for by the coffers of the American public.

SHAME ON JOHN MC CAIN FOR NOT BEING THE NUMBER ONE SIGNER AND COSPONSOR OF THE VETS BILL!!!!!!

Robert Lopez served 8 years in our military, fighting in Iraq as a tank commander. He was told he'd get his whole education bill paid for when he got out of the service, but like so many others, Mr. Lopez has faced the bleak reality of a government that has turned its back on its veterans.

That is why Senators Jim Webb and Chuck Hagel proposed the new GI Bill, which would bring back WWII-style standards of providing vets with full tuition, room and board. And that is why 51 senators have signed on, including 9 Republicans like John Warner, giving this GI Bill tremendous bipartisan support.

But it isn't enough. Faced with unprecedented filibusters, the only way to ensure Senate passage of the GI Bill is to get 60 co-sponsors. So far, John McCain has refused. The same McCain who insists he supports our troops. The same McCain who is voting lockstep with the Bush administration (who have also resisted this bill). We need to get John McCain to lead — to sign now and signal to other Republican leaders that we should be strongly behind our vets.

Robert Lopez thinks John McCain ought to stand in his shoes to know how difficult it is to be a vet and have to pay staggering education costs. THIS is your call to arms. Pass the video along and implore your friends to sign the petition.

Vote Vets, WesPAC, and Brave New Films feel passionately about giving our veterans the support they rightly deserve. Our government owes our troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan the opportunity to receive full educational benefits. These patriots have fought hard for our government; it's time our government started fighting hard for them.

Dear GI Bill Supporters, EMAIL OR CALL JOHN MCCAIN AND YOUR OTHER SENATORS TODAY TO SUPPORT THIS BILL!!!!

Your response to our GI Bill petition has been overwhelming! Within a week, we collected over 20,000 signatures demanding John McCain co-sponsor the GI Bill for the 21st century. And our film, Why Won't McCain Sign the GI Bill?, received over 76,000 YouTube views. We will be delivering these signatures to Senator McCain on Monday, but before then we need one more push.

When one serves in uniform, they deserve to respect and support of the V.A. and or G.I. benefits.

Because the White boss is greedy, he wont pay enough for the White worker.So, just like every thing else in America, houses are built by the lowest bidder. My parent house was built in the 40s, and it has no problems, houses built to day by mexican fall apart in 5 years. The inspector have given away their pride for the mighty dollar, so the mexican only have to have little quality, or craftsmanship skills. They don't have to develop craftsman skill because it's not needed any more. Track home are shit.

WASHINGTON DC - About 300,000 U.S. troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan suffer symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder or depression, but about half receive no care, an independent study said on Thursday.

The study by the RAND Corp. also estimated that another 320,000 troops have sustained a possible traumatic brain injury during deployment. But researchers could not say how many of those cases were serious or required treatment.

Billed as the first large-scale nongovernmental survey of its kind, the study found that stress disorder and depression afflict 18.5 percent of the more than 1.5 million U.S. forces who have deployed to the two war zones.

The numbers are roughly in line with previous studies. A February assessment by the U.S. Army that showed 17.9 percent of U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan suffering from acute stress, depression or anxiety in 2007, down from 19.1 percent in 2006.

But the 500-page RAND study, based in part on interviews with more than 1,900 soldiers, sailors and Marines, also said that only half of troops suffering debilities receive care. And in half of those cases, the care is only minimally adequate.

"There is a major health crisis facing those men and women who have served our nation in Iraq and Afghanistan," said Terri Tanielian, a RAND researcher who helped head the study.

"Unless they receive appropriate and effective care for these mental health conditions, there will be long-term consequences for them and for the nation."

FEAR OF STIGMAThe study said many service members do not seek treatment because they fear the stigma associated with psychological problems could harm their careers.

Post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, can result from wartime trauma such as suffering wounds or witnessing others being hurt. Symptoms include irritability or outbursts of anger, sleep difficulties, trouble concentrating, extreme vigilance and an exaggerated startle response.

RAND recommended that the Pentagon create a way for service members to receive mental health service confidentially and monitor the quality of care.

Army Col. Loree Sutton, director of the U.S. Defense Center of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury, welcomed the study.

She was concerned at the finding that only about half of those who sought help received "minimally adequate" treatment and said it would spur the military to try harder to recruit more mental health specialists.

The Army wants to hire 275 civilian mental health professionals but a tight labor market and difficulties getting civilians into war zones has slowed the effort, officials say.

RAND, a private research organization, estimated that stress and depression among returning soldiers cost $6.2 billion in the two years following deployment, mainly due to lost productivity, medical costs and a higher risk of suicide.

According to an internal email, the Bush administration suggests avoiding a diagnosis of PTSD or post-traumatic stress disorder for veterans and instead considering a diagnosis that might result in a lower disability payment. They suggest to call it an "Adjustment Disorder" so they can send them back to Iraq right away. Please dont forget to support your troops!

60% of all occupants of HUD properties are illegal according to the Los Angeles Times....

From the L. A. Times

1. 40% of all workers in L. A. County ( L. A. County has 10.2 million people)are working for cash and not paying taxes. This is because they are predominantly illegal immigrants working without a green card. 2. 95% of warrants for murder in Los Angeles are for illegal aliens. 3. 75% of people on the most wanted list in Los Angeles are illegal aliens. 4. Over 2/3 of all births in Los Angeles County are to illegal alien Mexicans on Medi-Cal , whose births were paid for by taxpayers. 5. Nearly 35% of all inmates in California detention centers are Mexican nationals here illegally 6. Over 300,000 illegal aliens in Los Angeles County are living in garages. 7. The FBI reports half of all gang members in Los Angel es are most likely illegal aliens from south of the border. 8. Nearly 60% of all occupants of HUD properties are illegal. 9. 21 radio stations in L. A. are Spanish speaking. 10. In L. A. County 5.1 million people speak English, 3.9 million speak Spanish. (There are 10.2 million people in L. A. County ) (All 10 of the above are from the Los Angeles Times) Less than 2% of illegal aliens are picking our crops, but 29% are on welfare. Over 70% of the United States ' annual population growth (and over 90% of California , Florida , and New York ) results from immigration. 29% of inmates in federal prisons are illegal aliens.

We are a bunch of fools for letting this continue

We should look at Norway as an example- they nearly lost their culture to immigrants, so they got very proactive and now host some of the toughest immigration laws in the world

I too am a Vet and spent 8 years protecting our Constitution. Unfortunately after my service was complete when I finally did get a good job I kept getting laid off. In those layoffs I had to surrender my firearms to sale because I couldn't afford to live and needed the money to feed my family and pay the bills. Now after many years I'd like to replenish them but can't afford firearms due to my now minimal paycheck. All the while I talk to my fellow Vets throughout the area as well as the country and they are mostly all unemployed so at least I have a job. I hope to one day be in a position to hire the ALL and take care of my fellow brethren the way they took care of me in the service.

About Me

I am retired, often bored, like to defend the little guy and make sure our Constitutional Rights aren’t trampled on ... A difficult thing to do in today’s society of Big Business, Greed, Corruption, and Useless Politicians.